A Little Light in the Dark
by Calaeris
Summary: The Avengers get themselves turned into children, and through an unlikely turn of events Loki, a prisoner of SHIELD, ends up taking care of them. Fury isn't paid enough to deal with this nonsense.
1. Tony

AN:/ This is a WIP response to a prompt on avengerkink, found here: avengerkink . livejournal 5102. html? thread= 5061102# t5061102

The prompt was:

The Avengers manage to get themselves de-aged while Loki is their prisoner and he ends up taking care of them. Which he's really good at. He's getting them fed and to bed on time and reading them stories and generally being an awesome mommy while Fury is just going WTF?!

I hope you enjoy. Title subject to change.

A Little Light in the Dark

Tony tells people who ask – who are cleared by SHIELD to know – that he doesn't really remember much from the month or so he was ten for the second time. It's not really a lie. He doesn't remember it in order, after all, and who knows what might have slipped between the cracks?

_First Day Post-Incident (he thinks)_

Tony wasn't exactly crying – he was nearly ten and nearly ten-year-olds didn't cry – but he wasn't exactly happy, either, after falling down the last two steps of the staircase. Ever since he'd overheard Director Fury (and one day, he would make something and call it that, something that went _boom_) talking about the prisoner kept locked up tight in the Helicarrier (the coolest thing he'd ever seen, or would be if they'd let him see it), he'd wanted to go look.

"Cry if you wish. It won't make a difference," the strange man told him. "You'll still have to get up again."

"Yeah, I know that thanks," Tony replied sarcastically. "I'm not gonna sit here forever."

"Show me," he was told abruptly.

"Huh?" he said, intelligent as ever.

The man sighed in the way Tony had learned meant 'stupid'. It didn't feel good.

"Show me your leg," he elaborated, his tone a little kinder.

Tony raised his eyebrow, then shrugged and pulled up his trouser leg. There was a scrape along the shin that was bleeding sluggishly, and when he poked it, it hurt. That was the extent of his medical knowledge – poke it, if it hurt tell someone.

"It hurts," he said.

"That is unsurprising. Can you walk?"

"Umm," Tony hesitated, then got up and stomped his foot a few times to check his leg. "Yeah, should be fine. I'll go tell Agent Hill, she'll do something. Maybe a Band-aid."

"I see," the man said with the slow intonation of someone who doesn't see, actually, but he'll take your word for it. Tony appreciated that.

"I'm Tony, Tony Stark. I'd say it like Stark, Tony Stark, like James Bond does, but I like double-Tony more than double-Stark. The world needs more Tony," he babbled as a belated introduction.

"I am Loki," the man replied. "And I know who you are."

"Most people do," Tony admitted, "or they know my dad."

"I also know how that feels," Loki (and, yeah, his parents were on the special juice when they named him) told him, quieter this time. "You should go and get your injury dealt with by your carers."

"Right, sorry," Tony said, not very sorry at all actually but happy enough to lie. He thought for a moment, and realized that this? Happened to be the most interesting part of the last two days. Apart from the whole 'waking up in the future' thing. "I'll visit again, okay?"

"Don't feel obliged to," Loki replied dryly. Tony took it as just one of those things adults say instead of 'yes', because a 'no, don't, stay away' would have been pretty boring.

Agent Hill hadn't been impressed that he'd wandered off around sensitive equipment, but when Steve got annoyed with her for telling him off she admitted that she wasn't surprised and let the seventeen-year-old take the younger boy to the medical bay. For helping, Tony resolved to take him to meet the weirdo in the cage the next day.


	2. Steve

Steve remembered more, he thought, than the others but it was hazy. He remembered how he felt more than what happened – how much scarier it was to be aged seventeen, scrawny and thrown into a future that was faster, busier, brighter than anything he'd ever seen than it had been with a new body and a world war behind him. How there was so much food after years of scrounging and saving and not having quite enough, and the guilt that ate at his stomach when he tried to eat his fill and remembered all the people in the past who would have done so much for what was given to him freely.

And when he had met Clint there was the small, shameful part of him that was grateful not to be the only one worrying about people who weren't there. Who had someone they missed more than anything.

Steve coughed dryly, his lungs not quite happy with the strange dusty quality of the air. It was almost stale, but it blew fresh and cool despite the fact that they were in an enclosed room. When he'd asked one of the others – Clint, he said his name was – about it, he just got a shrug and the answer "air-conditioning". Not that that was much help. It was strange, and alien, and uncomfortable being here. Even the other kids were strangely dressed and talked funny. He thought he was the oldest at seventeen, with the brown-haired kid, Tony, the youngest.

He wasn't exactly happy about taking orders from Agent Hill, either. The fact she was a dame didn't matter, he'd known plenty of women who'd taken charge when their men couldn't over the few years he'd been around, but the fact she seemed to be angry at them all for being kids and not adults definitely did. When she started in on Tony for wandering off before dealing with his injury he naturally butted in, and apparently that and an odd sticking bandage from the first aid kit was enough to get him into the younger boy's good graces.

Which apparently meant that the next day he was the recipient of an exclusive invitation to see the weirdo prisoner called Loki, courtesy of Tony. For a prisoner, he was pretty ordinary even with the odd clothes. Steve hadn't been expecting a gibbering lunatic or anything, but from Agent Hill's warnings about what lay in the bowels of the flying ship he didn't expect the mostly polite man he was introduced to. When the small talk had been sorted out, however, there was another surprise.

"Will you come and join us, or will you continue to eavesdrop?" Loki asked the air. Steve and Tony shared a glance as if to say – yes, this is indeed a crazy man, Agent Hill was absolutely right. Then they stared when Clint appeared from the stairwell.

"Fine, I'm here," he said sullenly, and when Steve raised his eyebrow quickly said: "I followed you, that's all, and you're not meant to be here anyway so you can't get angry with me for it."

"Does it matter?" Loki interrupted, sounding resigned. "I do not mind your presence – only that your manners are acceptable."

"Sorry," Clint said mulishly, and Loki accepted it with a graceful nod.

"That is three of you younger than you ought to be," Loki mused, eyes glancing from one to the other. "What happened to make you this way?"

"We don't know, not really," Steve volunteered after a moment. "Some kind of magic, they said, but – magic isn't real, is it? Though I suppose it's better than some of the alternatives."

He said that last part quietly, and regretted it soon after. Tony must have realised that too, though, because he covered any potential awkwardness with a loud laugh.

"I bet its future tech," he declared with all the satisfaction of someone convinced they are right.

"Regardless," Loki pressed, "was a name mentioned?"

"If there was I didn't hear it," Clint told him with a shrug. "They've not really been telling us anything."

"People rarely do," Loki pointed out, "are all of you so afflicted?"

"Well, there's us and a boy called Bruce and a girl called Natasha," Tony told him. "So yes?"

Loki hummed acknowledgement, then changed the subject.

Steve realised quickly that Loki wasn't comfortable remaining on a subject for long, preferring to pick and choose as he pleased and control the discussions they did have, but at least he was talking to them – really talking, like they were people and not subjects for experiments or idiots or nuisances. It took him a little longer to figure out that it was something of a struggle for the older man. There wasn't anything he could pin down, nothing he could point to and say yes, that's it, that's the fight right there, but there was something in Loki's manner that spoke of self-censoring, of a deliberate effort to be kind. He failed, a lot, being more abrupt than gentle and more practical than sympathetic, but Steve appreciated it all the same.


	3. Clint

Clint refused to tell anyone anything when he returned to normal. He remembered it all clean and sharp, the layers of time and experience he'd put between himself and old aches having disappeared to leave him raw and open. How could he tell someone that for the first time in years he'd felt the ache of his brother's disappearance like a knife in his back? But what hurt most, what he buried in the deepest parts of his subconscious in the hopes he would never have to look there again, was what he thought and did when he met Loki for the first-second time with the history between them forgotten (along with him).

When he heard the brat talking to Steve the Stick-Thin Wonder about some prisoner he was going to meet, Clint decided to tag along. Why wouldn't he? There wasn't anything to do here except hang out with Bruce in his room, or spend time with Natasha (who was not Nat, Natty, Nats or Tash, as she'd made very clear).

The guy – Loki – was sort of interesting. He noticed Clint fast and had believed him when he said that he didn't know what had happened; there'd been lots of adults in his life who'd had to make absolutely sure, usually by saying the exact same question in different words at different volumes. He was fifteen, not stupid. But he was trying too hard to be one of the good guys to actually be good. It was like he was trying to perform a trick he'd learned as a kid and hadn't used since he was small – he was out of practice and it showed.

Steve and Tony left, and Clint went with them at first before telling them he needed to piss and doubling back. Loki looked tired, but when his eyes flicked up to see who had entered Clint could almost see the gears in his head turning, plotting and planning. He didn't blame him, it must have been pretty boring stuck in a cage. That, and he had to have done something to deserve being there so he was fairly certain he would be doing his best to get out. It was a bit creepy, though, because as he watched he could see the effort Loki put into locking that part of him away behind a false smile.

"Hey," he said for lack of anything else to say.

"Hello," Loki answered curiously. "What brings you back so soon?"

"I wanted to ask you something," Clint told him.

"Very well, feel free to ask whatever you wish," he replied, leaning forward expectantly.

"Why do you talk to us?" he asked. It had been bugging him for a while – why would a criminal talk to three kids?

"Will 'boredom' suffice?" was the answer.

"No," Clint said flatly, and Loki smirked. Then, to Clint's not-quite surprise, the glimmer he had wiped from his eyes when he first saw him relit, and he was looking at a man he was quite certain was not on anyone's side but his own.

"Do you trust me?" Loki asked, and it seemed like an honest question.

"Not really," Clint said, opting for an honest reply.

"You're a sensible boy," he said, and it sounded a little sad.

"Look, as long as you don't tell me to do anything totally stupid I'll not not trust you, if you get me. I'm just not going to be jumping off any cliffs for you anytime soon," Clint replied, fidgeting to avoid eye contact. "Hell, I don't even know you. Not really."

"I will not harm you, not while you are this vulnerable. This I swear," he said softly, insidiously. "It would be of no benefit to me."

"So what do you want me to do?" Clint replied, wanting nothing to do with some stranger's promises and trying to get it back to something he understood.

"Pardon?" Loki asked, thrown but quick to recover his composure.

"When someone asks if you trust them they really want to ask if you'll do as they say. So tell me what you want me to do, and I'll tell you if I can or will do it. Simple," Clint shrugged.

"You are forthright," Loki said almost admiringly. "I want to know what happened to you. I want to know how to resolve it."

"Why? Aren't we the guys who beat up guys like you?" he asked, challenging him to lie to his face.

"Yes," Loki laughed ruefully, surprising him. "Which is why I require you all to be at your best. Good rarely fights good but evil cannot stand competition. I do not wish to have to continually prove myself against the dregs of this world, so in that respect you, and this organisation, happen to be useful to me."

"Right," Clint said, oddly disappointed, "it's all for you."

"You do not trust me, and yet you ask me to trust you with my motives?" Loki said with a twisted smile. "I have a hundred reasons for what I do. All you need to know is that our interests align – anything more is superfluous, the purest emptiest sentiment."

"How am I supposed to find out anything?" Clint asked after shrugging his acceptance, and Loki spread his arms expansively.

"Why not get your friends to help you? You will, after all, be helping yourselves," he pointed out, and Clint sighed.

"There's no way I'm getting any of them involved if I can help it. But yeah, fine, I'll be back whenever," he said. "I don't know what I can do, but I'll try."

"Then farewell for now, Clint Barton," Loki called after him.

As Clint made his way back to the rooms they were allocated, wondering how he was supposed to explain away the extra-long toilet break, he wondered why Loki tried less with him. With Tony and Steve he'd attempted to be nice, but with Clint he'd just told the truth. Or as much as he was willing to tell at least, which was better than nothing at all.

He couldn't complain. It was harder to deal with people who thought they were doing good when they hurt you, and at least Loki acknowledged he wasn't to be trusted.


	4. Natasha

Natasha had been reduced to thirteen, when her body stopped being reliable for a while in favour of growing and changing and doing new things. And yet, she was still far from vulnerable. It was so much easier to pretend while she was on the Helicarrier gathering information on the people who held her that she was an empty shell of a girl. She knew everything that was going on, of course, the visits to the prisoner, Clint's investigations into what had happened – none of it escaped her, though without someone to report to the accumulating data clogged her head, slowed her down.

That was her excuse, at the time, for her mistake.

_Fourth Day Post-Incident_

Natasha found Clint struggling with one of the tablets – flat little screens that did various tasks, handy and one more indication that this was truly the future – that they had been given to keep them quiet. Tony had taken to them as though they had been the one thing missing from his life that would ultimately complete it, and Natasha had had the good sense to ask him for lessons in their use. The others, on the other hand, regularly had difficulty and it was hard not to think less of them for failing to think of the same solution.

"You need help," she told Clint as he tried to find something of use.

"Yeah," he said with a snort, unsurprised at her abrupt appearance and carefully placing the tablet on a table, "I have no idea how to work this thing."

"I meant with what Loki asked you to do," she clarified, and was surprised when he went pale and glared at her.

"How do you know about that?" he hissed, as if Natasha would ever have such as sensitive conversation where there was the possibility of being overheard.

"Call it part of my training," she replied. It was as close to the truth as she wanted to get with a near-stranger.

"Right," he said with a sigh. "So you're just going to – what? Be my fairy godmother? Wave a wand and get me what I need?"

"No. I'm going to see if anyone's changed our clearance level," she told him.

"Clearance level?" he asked. "What?"

Natasha shook her head slightly, and resigned herself to explaining the ways of spies and governments to a circus performer.

"Our clearance level defines what we are allowed to know about. If they haven't changed that – and they might not have, depending on how efficient they are – we should be able to see the file on what happened," she told him, clicking and tapping on the touchscreen with ease before passing it back to him a few minutes later with a quiet: "There."

"How did you know your password?" he asked incredulously, as he stared at what she had called up onto the screen. File #11312014-183-REPAI-D2, the mission report document that included the medical reports, mission progress report, and all the other files deemed to be of significance to anyone who read it. "Also, seriously impressive."

"No problem," she said dismissively. She wasn't going to tell him she'd found it the day before. "We can take that to him and show him what he needs to know."

"Right."

Sneaking down to see Loki was as easy as it ever was with the majority of agents being dispatched to crises across the world, and when Clint pressed the tablet to the wall of the cage after a quick introduction it seemed that the prisoner wasn't as hampered by modern technology as he was. Although he periodically asked Clint to change the page, which they interpreted as 'scroll down', and was clearly reading what they put in front of him he still kept up brief, absent-minded conversation.

"I wondered if you would show," he said to Natasha. "There are few I have not seen now, correct?"

"Only Bruce," she said. "That doesn't matter. Can you help us?"

"Patience," he snapped, then closed his eyes as if in pain before continuing more gently, "there is much information and not all of it is what I required, nor is all of what I do need present. It will take time."

"Understood," she said neutrally.

"Why don't you take a seat," he suggested a few minutes later. Natasha thought that it might be because she had been at attention – after all, he had been glancing at her more frequently than would be normal and she had been very still, something she knew unnerved some of the people she met. She didn't much care.

Their session was interrupted by heavy footsteps clanging on the metal stairs down to where the cage was kept.

"What, exactly, are you two doing down here?" Fury asked them, voice quiet, steady, and angry.

"Making use of available resources to solve the current problem facing us, sir," Natasha rattled off, and was a little pleased when he looked at her like he could decide whether to carry on being angry or be creeped out by a thirteen year old girl.

"Paying a social call?" Clint shrugged beside her with a carefully careless smile, tucking the tablet into the back of his trousers. "It seemed pretty depressing down here."

"You two will follow me to my office, now. Is there anyone else who was paying 'social calls'?" he asked. "Be advised that if you lie there will be consequences."

"Nope," Clint said easily.

"Tony and Steve," Natasha corrected, and ignored his glare. "How did you know?"

"You say that like we don't track access to ongoing mission files," he told her, and she winced. Paranoia she understood – paranoia was something she should have predicted in this apparent age of computers and surveillance.

"And you," he said, rounding on Loki who raised his hands in a gesture of mock surrender, "you, I will deal with personally later."

"I'll be waiting," he called softly to Fury's retreating back, the two children following in his wake.


	5. Loki

Loki waited in the clear cage for the Director to return. It took perhaps a day – it was difficult to tell when you couldn't see the sky – and when he did the man looked much the worse for wear. Loki assumed it was the children's doing; little ones were incapable of appreciating the discipline that belonged to an army and would trample over it any chance they got. Apparently the Director had just found that out, and Loki was unprepared to give him sympathy.

He had anticipated Clint being found out when he asked him for the favour. What he had told Clint was true – for a certain value of truth – but it would have been impossible to be taken seriously had he offered his aid directly to SHIELD. It would have also put him in a dreadful position when the haggling inevitably occurred.

"Ah, Director. How pleasant to see you again," Loki smiled when the man came into sight, mockery laced through every word and gesture. Director Fury ignored him in favour of going straight to the point.

"Five of my people have been turned into children. Your brother is back in Asgard in case there's something your people can do –"

"Not my people," Loki corrected sharply. "And not my brother."

"Fine, whatever, not my problem. What is my problem are those kids. Why the hell do they listen to you, Loki?" the Director asked him. He was using the tone of voice that Tony had interpreted for him as being 'I smell bullshit, but do not see it'.

"Perhaps it's my charming personality," he replied with a wry smile. "Perhaps it is simply because you cannot spare time for them, whereas time is one thing I have in plenty thanks to these toys."

He raised his arms, allowing the polished stone cuffs to gleam in the artificial light. It hadn't taken him long to realise that these were what prevented him from making full use of his talents.

"I'm willing to make you a deal – give you a little more freedom, earn yourself a few more privileges. Are you interested in listening?" was the next question.

"Ah, I believe I see where this is going," Loki replied, and laughed. "Are you so incapable that you turn to monsters to raise your children?"

"If the monsters didn't tend to come out and play so often we'd be fine," he pointed out through gritted teeth.

"Now now, Commander, whatever problems you are currently coping with have nothing to do with me."

That's not to say that if Loki had had the idea he wouldn't have carried it out gleefully, but this time the spells came from another sorcerer. He even had an idea as to who it might be – but as yet he did not know if it would wear off with time or require a more unusual solution. To give them a suspect would just sour the relationship between himself and the rest of those who opposed the Avengers, so Loki was left with fewer options than he would like. The easiest of those would be to accept the offer he had been given - the one he had sought.

"I am asking you to take charge of them," he repeated, ignoring the taunt. "We've been going through the footage, and the only time they are not causing havoc or getting underfoot is when they're talking to you. I have just had to sit through three hours of them trying to persuade me to do this. I want them to shut up and let me do my real job. Will you do it?"

"What kind of freedoms and privileges are we talking about?" Never let it be said Loki was unqualified for negotiation.

"Freedom to roam the area of the Helicarrier that has been assigned to them. Better food. Better accommodations. The usual – you'll essentially be under house arrest, rather than prison," Fury clarified.

"Full authority over the children and what happens to them?" Loki suggested. "I don't want one of your agents interfering and ruining our rapport."

"Unless you're harming them – and, if you do, I will strip the skin from your body, international diplomacy be damned – fine," was the reply, and Loki stood.

"Then we have a bargain," he smiled a smile full of teeth. "Let me out."

At the Director's abrupt gesture the door was opened under the watchful eyes of several agents with weaponry reminiscent of that the foolhardy agent had possessed before he died the last time Loki had been on board the Helicarrier. It was irritating to see what once belonged to him in the hands of insects, but he could do little about it right then. Fury held out a thick leather strap with a metal insert moulded to a face – for a moment, Loki was unsure what purpose it could possibly serve, but soon realised when Fury pressed it over his eyes.

"We don't want you to be seeing all our shiny toys, after all," he told him.

As the blindfold was roughly tied and tightened around his eyes and his arms were bound behind his back Loki could not help but smile. Whether this treatment was supposed to humiliate him or not he could not know, but their fear pleased him greatly.


	6. Bruce

AN:/ If you can find the time to review, please do. Please. I know someone's liking it, at least a little, because there's ten people with an alert or who have this on their favourites list or both. I don't even mind if you tell me it's rubbish, if you tell me why. Please? /endofbeg

.

.

Bruce just smiled and deflected the questions directed towards him by the SHIELD psychiatric department. He had been a child again, fourteen years old and with friends. From what little he remembered, he had no regrets.

Bruce had missed most of the excitement surrounding Loki; he hadn't wanted to get in trouble with the agents and as a consequence had kept to himself rather than follow in their escapades. In fact, he'd only learned of the prisoner's existence when Fury came in with Clint and Natasha in tow and proceeded to explain in very short, angry sentences that they were to stay in their rooms unless accompanied by a senior agent and told them their access to the computers had been revoked. Intimidating at the best of times, he was frightening when he was angry and his self-restraint was obvious – a man who used violence as a tool in his everyday life, he telegraphed his anger in every jerky movement he made.

As soon as he came in, Bruce had squished himself into the armchair and kept his eyes on his books in the hopes that he wouldn't be targeted too. When he left, he stayed very still so that when the others talked he could figure out what all that was about.

"Why did you tell him anything?" Tony screeched at Clint.

"Wasn't me!" Clint yelled back, "Natasha gave you guys up."

"Natasha!" Tony whined, and Steve stepped in just as Natasha's eyes narrowed.

"Look," he said, "it happened, let it go. What we should focus on is what to do next."

"There's nothing to do," Tony told him bitterly, flopping onto a chair. "We won't be seeing Loki again."

"At least they can't punish him too, right?" Steve said hopefully. "He did nothing wrong, after all, except talk to us."

"And maybe read a classified report he told me to get for him," Clint said, and when Steve turned on him with a look of absolute horror he quickly added: "All he wanted to do was figure out what had happened to us! He said he needed us as adults. And he promised he wouldn't hurt us while we were like this. Well, while we were vulnerable, which is pretty much the same thing."

"They would be fools not to find out what he knows," Natasha said, voice clear in the quiet that followed Clint's babbling.

"I guess you aren't talking about just asking him," Steve replied with a false calm.

"No, I am not," she agreed.

From where Bruce was, he could see Clint growing paler and Tony more confused before Steve spoke again.

"We really need to do something," he said.

"Um," Bruce started before he could help himself, and flinched back when the others all looked at him. "Why don't you just talk to Fury?"

"Yeah, because he'll listen to us," Tony sneered.

"No," he persisted, convinced he was onto something. "Did you see him today? He's the man in charge of a massive and powerful organisation but he was also the only one he could trust or spare to talk to a bunch of kids who'd been bad. And he had no idea what he was doing. He could have done anything as punishment but he took away our computer access and told us off."

"So what does that mean?" Steve asked.

"It means we're still worth his time and attention. It means he doesn't know how to deal with kids. And if you add both of those together..." he trailed off.

"It means we could wear him down," Natasha completed thoughtfully.

"Right!" he said, smile twisting his mouth, glad that she'd caught on.

"Just talk?" Tony said.

"Yes, but for ages," Bruce nodded. "With a presentation, perhaps. My access probably hasn't been revoked."

"I can do that!" the younger boy grinned, and Bruce began to feel the first stirrings of doubt as to what he had potentially unleashed on the unsuspecting Director.

The five spent the rest of the afternoon and the evening deciding what to say and what to argue. Bruce found himself swept along by the others enthusiasm and as time passed he found it easier and easier to speak up, especially when he knew what he was talking about. Tony was the main driving force behind it and Bruce found that it was fun being clever, more fun than it had ever been, now he had someone to really challenge him.

They included the moral and ethical implications of torture, as were statistics on the rehabilitation rates for prisoners given something to care for, along with a section on how they weren't getting what they needed as children without a dedicated guardian, which was why Bruce found himself agreeing to put in an argument for Loki becoming their caretaker.

"Wait, what?" he said, fifteen minutes into a drawn out line of reasoning, courtesy of Tony Stark.

"Didn't you hear a word I said?" Tony asked. "If we –"

"No, no, I got it, you know him, he's not going anywhere, he's shown an interest in getting us back to normal, but do you really think that this is a good idea? He's a criminal."

"I think it's a good idea," Steve said when the others wouldn't speak. "He's a criminal, but I think we're safe with him. And we need someone to help us."

"I wouldn't say he would do it out of the goodness of his heart," Natasha said slowly, "but he would do it if he had something to gain. And right now, he doesn't have much, so we have plenty to bargain with."

"As long as we know what we're asking for," Bruce shrugged.

"We do," Tony said definitively, "we really do."

The man led into their rooms the next day was blindfolded, restrained, and smiling. Tony and Steve seemed outraged, Natasha fairly blasé, but Bruce just exchanged a glance with Clint. Whatever they liked to pretend while they were around, SHIELD was not a kid-friendly organisation. Quickly and efficiently the accompanying agents stripped him of the bindings and the blindfold, and he idly rubbed at his elbows.

Bruce just looked at him for a moment. He seemed severe, defensive, distant – not precisely what he had expected from the others' reports – and was wearing what looked like armour. It wasn't an encouraging sight.

"I presume there will be ground rules?" Loki asked Fury who was lingering at the door.

"Yes, for all of you," he stated, and turned to the children. "Arm out, all of you."

They obeyed with little fuss, and he snapped thin metal bands on their arm.

"Each of these has a panic button," he said. "If Loki does anything, breaks any rule, you press it. Understood?"

A quiet murmur of agreement rose up.

"Loki is not allowed to leave these rooms. He is not allowed to tamper with his bracelets or your panic buttons, he is not allowed to hit you or verbally abuse you, he is not allowed to access any computer or printed document classified by SHIELD. If he breaks any of these he will be taken back to his cell and punished appropriately. If you aid him in breaking one of these rules, you will be punished appropriately. Is that clear?"

"We understand," Steve told him.

"Your room is over there," Fury told Loki. "Take these and change into them. I'll be placing your current attire into storage."

"As you will," Loki replied agreeably, taking the plastic-wrapped package with a mocking bow.

Bruce watched the man enter the empty room – well, closer to closet really, space was at a premium on a flying ship – clad in leather and metal, and leave it dressed in SHIELD-issue sweatpants and a black t-shirt that was a little too big. All of a sudden he looked smaller and, if not more approachable, at least less aloof. His smile changed too, from knife-sharp to gently mocking. Everything about him seemed like he was tacitly inviting them to comment on the strangeness of the change, and it made Bruce at least unwilling to mention it. The others remained quiet too as Fury departed with the folded garments and they were left with each other, not quite sure what to do next.


	7. Tony, Revisited

AN:/ Sorry for the delay, and also Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it! (Also Merry Christmas to those who don't but appreciate the Boxing Day sales anyway =) )

Chapter 7

The next thing Tony could remember from that time, when everything was done and over with, was going to bed the first time after Loki had taken charge of them. It was memorable, at the very least.

* * *

"You might be an intelligent child, Tony, but you are a child nonetheless and you will go to bed. What you expect from your body and what it can actually do are two very different things," Loki told him firmly, his tone of voice brooking no complaint or argument.

"It's only eight thirty!" Tony screamed – he couldn't care less for any tone of voice, he'd heard the entire range and ignored it all. "I'm not tired!"

Only Natasha dared to look on. The others were hiding, or trying to hide, from the potential fallout of the outburst.

"Well then, please continue with your tantrum. I'm certain you will tire yourself out soon enough," was the calm reply. "When that occurs, do me the immense favour of falling quiet so I know to carry you to bed. I wouldn't like you to get a sore neck and be even crankier tomorrow."

"You aren't in charge of me!" was the reply.

"Actually," Loki told him, "I am. You spent three hours convincing a man that I should be in charge of you and here I am. If you don't like it, blame yourself."

"You don't understand!" Tony shouted, stomping his foot and acting more like a ten year old than he had for a week.

"So tell me," Loki said, voice soft as he stepped across the room and crouched in front of the child who was now crying tears of pure fury. When Tony just scowled, Loki cocked his head to one side and looked at him steadily before asking: "Do you want to talk in private?"

"I don't want to talk at all," Tony mumbled.

"You don't want to, but perhaps you need to?" Loki pressed, and when Tony tiredly nodded, small shoulders slumped in defeat, he took the boy's hand and led him to the room that he had been assigned.

Steve later told Tony that he'd really worried the others, and that he was sorry he'd forgotten Tony was so young. Clint later told him that it was okay, that he didn't have to be strong or clever or independent, that he just had to be Tony, and then gave the disclaimer that one of the support staff in the orphanage had told him that when he was a kid and Barney was pissed at him so Tony didn't think he was being all soppy. Bruce pointed out the next day that he was available to bounce ideas off, which was about as useful as he could think of being right then. That was later, though, and right then he was an overtired ten year old who really didn't want to go to sleep.

"Tony?" Loki asked, sitting on the bed beside him.

"I have nightmares," he told the man. "Really bad ones. I don't remember them when I wake up, but they're _horrible_."

"What kind of nightmares are they?" Loki asked him.

"There's more than one kind?" Tony replied despairingly, face scrunched up in dismay.

"Yes. There's the kind where you feel like something is following you, the kind where you are being hurt, the kind where someone you care about is being hurt," he listed, but on seeing Tony's eyes widen hastily changed tack. "But perhaps it would be better for you to tell me what you feel like when you wake up?"

"I guess," Tony said hesitantly after a moment, "I can feel my heart beating too fast, and I can't quite breathe properly for a couple of seconds. It's like something really bad happened, and I was part of it, but I can't remember what it was. Like being kidnapped or something, and waking up in a strange place."

"You've been kidnapped?" Loki asked. Tony just looked at him like he was an idiot.

"Stark, remember?" was all the reply he gave.

"Did they give you nightmares like this before?"

"No, never," he told Loki honestly.

"Tony, I need you to listen," Loki said after a pause. "I can't be certain with the information I currently possess, but these nightmares of yours might be connected to the spell that made you this way. They might be events you lived through, or something the spell caster included in order to keep you all off-balance. Do you wake up in the night?"

"No, I just feel really horrible in the morning."

"Then, perhaps we can agree on a plan of action? I can ensure I am here when you awaken, if you think it will help?"

"That would be nice," Tony agreed, and then hunched himself over protectively as he said: "I don't really like being on my own."

"I am not overly fond of being alone either, sometimes," Loki admitted. It was a cheap admittance, but one intended to comfort. "Will you go to bed now? It is nine o'clock – you have successfully delayed your bedtime."

A small smile, then Tony allowed Loki to take him through what was evidently going to be his new routine – pyjamas, teeth, a gentle tucking in followed by a story of Asgard. Tony smiled, not because of the research that he knew Loki had done through the afternoon and evening once he had fed his charges, but because he had a feeling that "Leifr" was actually once "Loki". His new guardian was strangely insistent on following the routine he had decided, ignoring him when he said he didn't need tucking in or a story, so naturally Tony just let him do as he liked.

But, when the routine was done and Loki was about to leave, something occurred to the young boy.

"Loki? Do you have nightmares?" he called out sleepily.

"Yes. Terrible ones, and I remember every moment," Loki told him with rare honesty. "Goodnight, Tony."

Reaching out, Loki passed his hand over the sensor and the lights dimmed to almost nothing as Tony yawned and snuggled himself deeper into the bed.


	8. Steve, Take Two

AN:/ Um - at least this has been a shorter wait than the last one? Thank you for your comments, and I'm sorry I'm not going into more detail on Steve's dreams in this chapter =(

* * *

It was strange, the things that were shaken loose from Steve's memory by the most routine and ordinary things. Cooking evoked a memory – so did going to bed. But it wasn't until he was suiting up and lifting his shield for battle that one nugget was dislodged and brought to the forefront of his mind to turn several of those snippets into a continuous memory.

* * *

Steve watched Loki argue with Tony from the corner of his eye, and a little thread of shame curled tight around the base of his stomach and choked up his throat. Up until that point it had been his job to try and get Tony to sleep simply by virtue of being the only person with the time and consideration to bother. He hadn't been succeeding and he knew it; Tony just closed the door behind him at night and opened it again in the morning with bags under his eyes. There was little he could do, however, considering – well, everything else that he had to deal with. But Tony was ten years old, and he knew he should have tried harder.

Loki had made it clear from the start that he was going to carry out the duties given to him to the best of his ability and Steve honestly couldn't tell whether or not he was punishing them for making him a childminder or punishing himself for getting involved in the first place. He had started with the absolute basics of food, water and rest and had requested books on childcare for young mortals to ensure he didn't do anything that would be normal for an Aesir child but harmful to a human kid.

"Have you eaten?" was the first question Loki had asked – indeed, the first thing he said at all – much, much earlier after Director Fury had left them to their own devices, just as the silence was about to turn very uncomfortable.

"Huh?" Clint had responded, looking at him instead of his feet for the first time in ten minutes.

"The oldest of you is seventeen, the youngest ten," he clarified. "If you spent the last three hours talking to the Director then it must have been some time since you last ate."

"Right, but what has that got to do with anything?" Clint replied, and Steve had got the distinct feeling that was a bad thing to say when Loki's lips thinned and his eyes narrowed.

"I have been tasked with taking care of you, and I will do as I have been asked," had been the cold reply. "And you will be fed at an appropriate time, you will go to bed at an appropriate time, and you will be given material to occupy you suitable to your age range."

"But – " Tony interrupted, and Steve could see that the thought of having to play with regular toys like a normal kid, or worse being made to sit through lessons normal ten-year-olds would have, horrified him.

"You asked for me, did you not? Perhaps you should have considered more carefully what relegating me to a childminder would mean for you," was his brittle answer.

"We didn't mean to be cruel," Clint had protested. "We thought they'd hurt you because I'd let you look at the report."

"We've not eaten since breakfast," Steve said, hoping that returning to the original question would cut off whatever argument might have been about to start. "I can cook, it's no problem. Usually the agent in charge of us brings ready-cooked food –"

"Take-out," Tony chimed in. "We've been over this."

"Fine, take-out," Steve said, rolling his eyes, "but there are fresh things in the kitchen."

"Then you and I will take charge of this meal, at least," Loki told him.

"You cook?" Tony asked a little incredulously.

"I am a sorcerer, not a fool. Of course I can cook well enough to sustain myself," Loki frowned.

"So you're a bad cook," Tony translated flatly. "Well, at least Steve makes good stuff."

Fortunately, Bruce's stomach took the opportunity to rumble loudly – or at least it seemed to be Bruce, even if Clint looked a little shifty after it had happened – proving Loki's concerns right. He indicated for Steve to show him to the kitchen area with a nod and a graceful wave of his hand.

"By the time we return I want the table clear, the chairs arranged neatly and the places laid – I don't expect perfection but I do expect you all to be ready and waiting by the time the meal is prepared. Understood?"

There was an unhappy murmur, but under Loki's watchful eye they at least made a cursory effort to look like they were doing something.

"Is there anything I need to know?" Loki asked him when the two entered the kitchen, then looked surprised when Steve listed the little quirks of the small space such as the oven tending to burn things placed at the back and one particular knife having a loose blade without an argument.

It was something he noticed more and more as Loki interacted with the others. In every new situation he tried to command and expected to fail, but only turned to persuasion as a last resort as though it was more important to be authoritative than to be kind. Every time he was answered before he got to the persuasion stage he seemed genuinely surprised. The same pattern had played out that night with Tony – firm, then when that failed his efforts to acquire the information he wanted turned gentle.

Steve wondered what information he had managed to obtain.

One by one, the children went to bed according to a rudimentary schedule that Loki had devised. As the oldest, Steve was permitted to stay up until ten o'clock which gave him a full half-hour alone with Loki once the others were gone. It also meant he was able to watch as Loki followed them into their rooms for a few minutes, presumably to talk, and notice that every single time he came back out with a carefully crafted blank face.

Once Bruce had been sent to bed, Steve took the opportunity to speak up.

"Does Tony have nightmares too?"

"Too?" Loki asked, glancing over the top of his device at the teenager.

"I hear some of the others moving about during the night – I don't get much sleep here," he admitted with a rueful shrug. "I know Natasha wakes up screaming, she has the room next to mine, and sometimes I hear Bruce calling out to someone to stop. I – I just wake up feeling cold, and lonely, and out of place but I know I have nightmares too even if I don't remember them. I hoped Tony wouldn't. He's too young."

"Why are you telling me all of this?" Loki questioned, having laid the device down while Steve had been talking to better focus his entire attention on the younger man. It was somewhat unnerving and Steve inwardly winced as he thought of an answer.

"Because I think you can make things right again. This isn't right, this is wrong, very wrong, and there are a lot of people suffering as a result," he said honestly.

"You tell me a lot of things, don't you? Here, and when we were in the kitchen," he said, sounding genuinely curious as to why someone would be so accommodating.

"I believe it is better to be well-informed," he replied with a shrug, "and let's face it, you need all the help you can get to figure this out."

"Noted," Loki said. "You do understand that I am not your friend, don't you?"

It was strange how he said it – no threat, just a simple question laced with a simple curiosity. As if he was just pointing out the state of the weather, or the fact it was night.

"Maybe not," Steve said thoughtfully. "But right now we're working together and I know you won't hurt us. If you were, you would have already."

"But I have hurt you in the past, and I will hurt you in the future," Loki replied, narrowing his eyes – Steve assumed he was trying to look threatening. He based his assumption on the fact he felt threatened, so he thought he had a good grasp of the man's intent.

"That's then, and this is now. Stop trying to frighten me, because it isn't working," Steve told him, unwilling to admit it was working a little bit more than he would have liked, and decided to hastily make his escape. "I'm off to bed. Goodnight, Loki."

"Goodnight," Loki said softly, and Steve could almost feel his stare as a tangible pressure on his back as he left the room.


	9. Clint, Second Try

AN:/ Yeah, I kind of belaboured the point last chapter, and I'm not 100% sure what's going on in this one. Confession: I've never written a proper multichaptered fic before. It's harder than it looks! I'm glad people are enjoying it anyway =)

* * *

Sometimes, a memory will swell in Clint's mind, surfacing with a near-violent clarity, consuming the world for a moment, and he will reject it equally as strongly. Those memories always contain some action or conversation that inspires only disgust for his younger, stupider self.

But at the point when that happens, all he can do is repeat one sentence in his head in an automatic attempt to blot out the invasion (like he couldn't before):

_They are nothing alike._

And he's not as sure as he wants to be that that is not true.

Clint woke in the middle of the night, the blue light on the computer oddly uncomfortable in the vanishing haze of his dream. Heaving himself out of bed was harder than it should have been, but he wasn't as worried about the heaviness of his limbs and the peculiar disconnect between his mind and his body as he had been the first time this had happened. He had a coping mechanism and everything.

Shaking his feet and hands to get rid of the last lingering effects of the unremembered dream, he quietly slipped out into the main area.

"Where, precisely, are you going?"

Clint froze in place, habit and old reflexes keeping him still as he assessed the threat. When Loki stood from the chair he'd claimed earlier in the evening, he was able to relax – Loki hadn't done anything bad, not yet.

"Glass of water," he answered in a hushed voice, mindful of the others even though they'd all had to get used to the clanking of the helicarrier and the sound of voices through the plasterboard walls.

"Your dream?"

"Yeah," he nodded, and went to go into the kitchen.

"I heard you speaking in your sleep to someone called Barney," Loki told him as he turned his back, and Clint winced.

"It doesn't matter," he said, and rolled his eyes in resignation when Loki followed him into the kitchen.

"I'll decide that. You were asking him not to leave you – why?" he asked. Clint had to give him some credit, though, because he at least made an attempt at sounding concerned. A piss-poor attempt, maybe, but an attempt nonetheless.

"None of your business."

A firm "Barton", accompanied by a hand on his shoulder that Clint could have shrugged off but had learned not to at the hands of plenty of other authority figures, was enough to stop him. He looked up at Loki.

"Fine," he said. "Fine. I'm sitting down, though."

Releasing him, Loki made an expansive gesture that Clint assumed meant 'go right ahead' and took his water over to where they'd put the chairs. He did, however, make sure to perch himself on the very edge of the chair furthest from Loki's before he started to tell him what he wanted to know.

"Barney - he's my older brother. He's not a very good brother, I guess, but he's _my_ brother and... well, he's the only person I've got left. My parents are gone, they died in a car crash, and since then it's just been us against the world. But I've heard him talking about leaving the circus and I'm not sure he's going to take me with him this time. Not that I blame him, and sometimes I wish he'd just go and stop being so... _Barney..._ but," he paused, fidgeting and shifting as he tried to find the words, "I really don't want him to be gone too."

Another adult in the same situation might have tried to hug him, or tell him that was normal, or make those stupid sympathetic noises that had always meant 'glad I'm not you' to Clint. Loki was not a normal adult.

"I have a man who claims me as brother," the man admitted. "I hate him. I _hate_ him."

Clint's hand drifted towards his panic button – not that he quite believed it would work – as Loki's face twisted into a sneer and the neutral facade was peeling away like old paint.

"But," he continued, reigning himself in as he noticed this, "though I will never again accept him as such, and I will make war upon him and his until one or the other of us is dead, there will be a part of me that will bleed for my brother when he finally perishes. I know what it is to have a complex relationship with those who call themselves family."

"Right," Clint said. He wasn't exactly sure if that helped or not. "So... is he your brother or isn't he? It wasn't very clear from what you said."

"I was not born to his parents," Loki answered, and Clint could see the anger shifting in his expression. It was easy – he'd seen something similar on Barney's once upon a time. "And I did not know for many years. They only deigned to tell me when I had found out something was strange myself, and then rejected all I did for them before stealing from me everything that was rightfully mine. He is not my brother, by blood or by fostering."

"I see," was all Clint could think of to say.

"And you have finished your water," Loki reminded him, the calm mask firmly back in place in a matter of a moment. Clint nodded mutely, and put his glass in the sink.

"Barton," Loki said as he made his way back to his room. "If he stays, then he is your brother and has done his duty. If he does not, then he is still your brother but he has done a kindness to you by freeing you from his selfishness. No matter his decision, you will rise under your own power, not his."

"Pretty crappy motivational speech," Clint grinned, a little too widely. "Stick to babysitting."

Loki just raised an eyebrow, apparently taking it as the joke it was intended to be rather than an insult, and responded with a straightforward: "Goodnight."


	10. Natasha, The Next Step

At least I'm halfway through the next chapter, and now have a good idea of what will happen, right? =)

Natasha: The Next Step

It was easy to see when one of the others had been hit by a memory. They'd wince, or hesitate, or close their eyes when there was no reason to. Natasha didn't. She was as used to having her memories tampered with as any human could be, and had long since reconciled herself to it all. Sometimes they came as a spark, a brief light that flared into brilliance and then went away, unimportant, dull. Sometimes they dragged her down like a wave, stealing the breath from her lungs and her feet from beneath her. They were the most inconvenient.

But when the call came in and she heard Loki's voice live again for the first time in over a month, she was surprised to find it triggered no memories at all.

Over the next few days, Loki kept them all to his strict schedule. Sometimes he could be persuaded to compromise – Tony and Bruce were allowed to learn material that was definitely not for the average ten or sixteen year old, for example, and despite what Loki had planned it was Steve who helped him in the kitchen most often. But, for the most part, it was his show.

Sometimes he would ask for bizarre items from the agents, who provided them without question. They found out why three days later, when he covered the floor with plain paper and called Clint over to sprinkle a foul-smelling liquid over him. As Clint spluttered and complained, a soft golden glow began to emanate from his skin before coalescing into thin ropes of light covering him in an incomprehensible pattern from head to toe, glowing through his clothes. Loki told the boy to be still before slowly plucking at the ropes – the entire thing peeled off like a sticker, and with a flick of his wrist he settled the whole thing on the paper. It faded fairly quickly, but burnt the pattern into the paper.

"There," he said, with great satisfaction, and proceeded to spent much of his time poring over it. Every once in a while he would scribble out a bit of the pattern and set them to looking to see if it was duplicated anywhere else, and sometimes he would ask one of them to stand and have a piece of their living pattern compared to what was on the piece of paper. Loki would frown, or smile gleefully, or let out a soft 'hm' which made it difficult to figure out how close he was to a solution.

Natasha often wondered why he was bothering to do all this if the spell would just go away on its own, but the only time she wondered that aloud he gave her a steady look and a quiet "It always serves to be prepared" as an answer.

But Natasha was certain that she was the only one who really noticed the changes that were occurring. Having kept up with her training, perhaps not to the extent that her supervisors back in Russia would have wanted but enough to keep her busy all the same, it was easy for her to measure how much her abilities were degrading. It started with being out of breath after running laps, and as the week progressed it took less and less time for her muscles to start burning with effort. When her skin began to have short periods of extreme sensitivity, to the point that even the light brush of her clothes made her want to shudder and vomit, she began to feel the first twinges of fear.

_Twelfth Day Post-Incident_

It had felt like she was walking through treacle from the moment she got up. However, it took Natasha tripping over a wire on the floor and landing in a sprawl for Loki to notice something was wrong.

"Are you alright? You've been sluggish all day," he asked, eyes flicking over her for any sign of illness. They had all been helping him find a duplicate pattern again, and as the others stared she could feel the humiliation like a living thing coiled in her stomach.

"I'm fine," she told him.

"Do not try to lie to a liar," he said. "What is wrong? Report."

It was her duty to keep her body in good condition. To do otherwise was to abuse the privilege of being alive and waste the money that had been spent on it.

"I can breathe, but it feels like I can't quite fill my lungs. I can walk and run, but my legs begin to ache after a while –" Natasha told him reluctantly, only to be interrupted.

"How long is 'a while'?" Loki asked. If he was concerned, he showed no sign of it on his face. In fact, his expression was quite familiar – the detachment of a scientist towards a subject. Natasha was aware enough to know that that shouldn't have been as reassuring as it was.

"Thirty minutes, perhaps. No more than forty-five," she decided after a momentary pause. She hesitated again, but finally told Loki of the thing she most feared. "And sometimes my skin is sensitive so that even the lightest pressure is pain, but that only lasts two or three minutes and only occurs infrequently."

"Have all of you felt this?" Loki asked the others who had listened in.

"I can cope," Steve answered stoically. "It isn't a big deal for me."

"I didn't want to be a bother," Clint added, and Bruce shrugged sheepishly.

"I haven't had the skin thing, but the rest sounds right. My neck hurts sometimes too, if that's relevant?" he told them. "I just thought it was a side-effect of being inside all the time on a flying aircraft carrier."

"I see," Loki said. "Anything to add, Tony?"

"No," Tony replied. "The neck thing, sometimes."

There was a pause as Loki thought it over. Natasha sat down while he stared into space, lips twitching as he silently went through theories – or so she assumed. Eventually he came back to them.

"Whoever did this did it poorly," Loki told them slowly. "I can see it in the spell's workings – it's sloppy."

"So they did something wrong?" Tony piped up.

"There is nothing incorrect about the spell that was woven. However, there is enough vagueness and imprecision in the whole for problems to build up. The weaving is too loose, and the thaumaturgical energy it requires is being improperly converted from natural processes and then improperly threaded through the spell's circuit."

As he took in their confused faces, he raised his eyes up to the sky and offered:

"I could use a bucket to drink from, but it wouldn't be as fit for purpose as a cup. This spell is a bucket. It should have been a cup."

"You allow for margins of error when building a machine, but leave them too loose and quality drops," Tony nodded sagely.

"Well, I'm glad one of us gets it," Clint said, "but what does that actually mean for us?"

"Oh, very little. There is nothing you can do about it. There will be a slight decline in your health, similar to a having a bad cold, but fortunately this will end when the spell does. In case you hadn't noticed," he said with a sudden wry grin, "I am working on that."

Natasha didn't quite believe him, but she knew it was the best she was going to get.


	11. Bruce, A New Wave

Every now and then, a shiver of anger would creep up on Bruce from the deep well he had within him and he would just relax into it and let it pass, smothering it by analysing and considering and ultimately rejecting or accepting the impulse that had spawned it. But then there were the times when he had to stop, and look at it, and feed it with whatever he could until it was too big to fit inside him – until the Other Guy came out.

And since the Incident there were now times – rare, so very rare, but they happened – when he would relax into warm sheets and search for the anger in the most oblique way possible, edging around it to make sure it was still there, and he would realise that he didn't feel angry at all.

Just sad.

-

_Twelfth Day Post-Incident, or Thereabouts_

The kids couldn't get a word more out of him that day, not on that subject, but Bruce could see that Loki had been disturbed by the findings. The evening meal was spent as one long, awkward silence from everyone but Tony, who chattered away in his usual manner about this and that and what he'd found out or done that day. Bruce liked the boy, but was glad when Loki sent him to bed with a quiet word and a story. It gave him time to think, which was ultimately the reason he found himself still awake long after everyone else had gone to sleep.

His mind churned away, leaving him unable to quite drop off. Loki's answer to Clint's earlier question – whether this was going to affect them or not – had been unsatisfactory to say the least, and it kept his thoughts circling back round to the problem when he would have much preferred to nod off. It did, however, mean he was awake to hear the footsteps outside his door and the request from Loki to speak to Nick Fury.

"There is a problem," he head Loki say. Apparently they had found a phone or something, because he hadn't heard anyone arrive. "It seems that I made a slight miscalculation – I need to remove the spell myself, rather than wait for it to collapse on its own."

A pause was next, and Bruce leaned carefully forward in his bed in an effort to hear the conversation better. There were no creaky floorboards on the Helicarrier, but there was plenty of metal and he would have to avoid making noise if he wanted to listen and not be noticed.

"They're dying."

Bruce's heart almost stopped, and he felt out of breath even though he was gulping in air enough to feel dizzy. Distantly he could hear the conversation continue and tried to focus on that instead of Loki's bare statement.

"The spell is feeding off them – I have a feeling the person who cast it was either incompetent or cruel, to force the people of SHIELD to watch as their protectors perished as children from something they could neither prevent nor understand," Loki was saying, and Bruce could feel his eyes stinging. He wondered if Loki had had anything to do with all this – if this was another lie like when he told them they were alright.

"I am cruel," he could hear Loki admit. "But not that... deliberately. And I would not harm a child in my care; only those who got in the way of my plans by accident or another's design."

A pause.

"Cast your aspersions, if you will. But I am the only one who can lift this, and you know it. Now, I have business to attend to."  
Bruce didn't hear Loki approach, but if he was honest with himself the man could have been clomping around with a brass band following and he wouldn't have heard a thing – he was too focused on not hyperventilating. It wasn't until the side of the bed dipped on one side that he jerked his head up and found him sitting there with a paper bag in his hand.

"Apparently, it is best if you breathe into this," Loki said, offering it to him. When Bruce had taken it, he placed his hand carefully on the boy's back and rubbed it in circles. He supposed Loki was trying to calm him down, but all Bruce could think of to do was gasp out the broken fragments of a question.

"Did you – are we –"

Loki hushed him.

"Concentrate on breathing. I would have preferred you not to have heard that," he said, and Bruce could hear a note of regret in his voice. "There is no point in worrying when there is nothing you can do, and I sought to prevent any of you being afraid of a future that I will not allow to occur."

"You can't – know –"

"I can," Loki said firmly.

"You lose a lot though, right?" Bruce asked. The bag seemed to be working – he could feel himself calming down. Or at least, breathing properly again. Tension thrummed through him as he thought about the lies Loki had told, and the gall the man had to be so calm when everything – everything – was going as wrong as possible. But he supposed it was easy for him. He wasn't the one dying.

"I do not have my usual distractions," he smiled, somewhat ruefully. "And you did not know me when I triumphed as a younger man."

"And that makes it okay?" Bruce asked tightly. "That makes it alright?"

"It makes it better than if I were an incompetent," Loki told him.

"But you can fail. And we wouldn't have known if you did – we would have died ignorant," he snapped.

"I would not allow that to happen. If it seemed that was likely –" Loki began, but Bruce had had enough.

"You lied!" he shouted, grabbing his pillow from behind him and throwing it across the room. That felt good, but not enough – so he threw the lamp, too, and it smashed so _satisfyingly_ on the wall.

"Stop that," Loki said firmly, raising his voice. "You will wake the others."

"Who cares? They should know," he accused, and flung his clock at the man. Loki deflected it easily, batting it aside with his hand like it was nothing. Bruce wanted to throw more, wreck _more_ and _more_ until the pristine perfect room was as _broken_ as it took so it would reflect how _angry_ he was; but the anger had already wrenched itself into gnawing guilt upon seeing it almost hit his carer.

Instead, he curled his legs up with his back against the wall. Guilt may have been burned into him, but he wasn't going to let that stop him getting some answers.

"Now, where did you learn manners like that?" Loki asked calmly. There was no sign of the raised fist or hateful glare he was expecting, and that made Bruce brave.

"My father doesn't like me - he thinks I'm a monster. That means he isn't always very... nice," Bruce said defiantly with a twisted sneer, breathing more easily as the tension left him. "I guess I learned it from him."

He flinched as Loki reached out with surprisingly inflexible arms and pulled him to his side. He pressed his face into Bruce's hair, and the teenager could feel him shake a little.

"Fathers can be cruel to those they think are cuckoos in the nest," he said softly, with a careful and hoarse whisper. "Whatever you are, you are yourself – you need no such validation as a man like that can provide. Now, I did lie. I did, but can you see why?"

"No," Bruce muttered.

"Can you imagine Tony hearing this? How frightened he would be?" Loki asked gently but insistently. "Or Steve, perhaps, with all he faces already in this new and strange world? You panicked, and you have far less to worry you. Perhaps Clint or Natasha would be able to cope with this news, but is it fair that some should know and some should not?"

"I don't know," Bruce shrugged.

"Of course not," Loki said with a slight laugh. "Why should you know the answer to that? These are questions I have to deal with, not you, and I decided that the risk of permanent harm was not enough of a concern to share with any of you. I will fix this."

"Do you promise?" Bruce murmured into his knees.

"Hm?" Loki asked.

"Do you promise? You keep your promises, so is this a promise or just something you're saying?" he replied more clearly.

"I promise I will do all I can to avoid disaster," he allowed, "and that I will bend all my talents to the task of returning you all to your rightful state."

"Hardly a guarantee," he scoffed.

"Never ask me for a guarantee, Bruce. You will never get one," Loki smiled. "Are you feeling well enough to sleep?"

"Mm. Can you, I mean – nevermind," he said. He wasn't surprised when a wave of tiredness swept over him – partially because he was too tired to be surprised. It had been an eventful night.

Loki appeared to accept that Bruce wanted him to ignore his last aborted request, pulling back the covers from underneath the boy and gesturing for him to slide under. When Bruce complied, he tucked them in around him. It was oddly comfortable and strangely soothing to be in a duvet cocoon.

"Would you like a story? Tony seems to find them reassuring when he goes to bed – perhaps they will work the same magic for you," he said.

"Okay," Bruce replied sleepily, smiling a little that Loki had understood that he didn't want to be quite alone.

"Alright. Now, many years ago there was a wise king with two brave sons, Leifr and Tofi..."

With Loki's voice calm and steady in the background, Bruce soon drifted off into sleep.


	12. Loki II

AN:/ Thank you for your lovely reviews! I'm not going to abandon this fic, I'm just something of an erratic updater =)

* * *

With the children asleep, Loki had plenty of time to himself. If the cameras were watching – and they were – all they would have seen was him pacing round the table, looking at the design on the paper, and every now and again sitting back down, presumably to think. But Loki knew that the secret to forming plans that others would disapprove of was to keep as much as possible as far below the surface as you could, so that not even the slightest of ripples could be seen crossing your face or infusing your movements.

For all their observations, for all their strength and ability to bring him down, SHIELD didn't really understand even the basics of how he operated. Loki was almost disappointed. He wasn't sure in whom.

He hoped that they didn't think he was being compliant.

But that wasn't his concern at the moment. His concern was Bruce.

He hadn't intended for the young boy to hear that conversation. He hadn't wanted any of the children to be fully aware of what was happening to them. Of course he wouldn't allow them to die, so why worry them with what would never happen?

It was worrying, however, how – _involved_ he was with the children. There was something sweet, cloyingly so, about having dependents. Once or twice he had wondered whether he was servant or king in their little world; he cared for them and performed tasks for them, and he also gave orders that they obeyed because they recognised his authority. But he was fairly certain that to think on that would be to succumb to madness, and avoided that train of thought as much as he could. Instead, he put his mind to the task at hand.

The thing about magic, Loki mused, was that it was too much like water. It flowed through the easiest channel, and if the channel was not easy enough it would wear steadily away at the sides to make it smoother and without effort.

So was it so surprising that it was equally easy to shift a few lines out of place in the spell cast on the Avengers?

Using his own innate ability and the training that he had acquired over his lifetime in Asgard, it had only taken a little work to learn how to persuade the cuffs that he wasn't doing any magic, not really – just adjusting what was already there. Worn down over at least two centuries of use, it was unsurprising that the spells imbued into the stone were growing less and less strict on what they allowed through.

Fury really should have done his research on the little cuffs that bound his magic.

Earlier he found another point where the spell was fracturing and bleeding power. Taking note of the location and, and what had been the original pattern, he took a small bottle of diluted tincture so he could see the spell and went to the nearest door – Steve's.

Once Loki had started his assault on the spell's integrity, the spell itself had continued the theme of disintegration. Everything he had said to Bruce and Fury was quite true – they would die if the spell was allowed to continue degrading in this manner, leeching from them instead of eating itself up. Most of the work he was doing involved keeping the spell as stable as possible after his original interference, slowing down the degradation.

He was balancing their lives on a knife-edge. It was fortunate for everyone involved that he had always had a talent with knives.

Carefully opening the door just enough to peer inside, listening closely for any sign the boy was waking.

When enough time had passed for Loki to be sure that he was not, he crept across the small room and crouched by the bedside.

As Steve breathed shallowly, lying on his side, Loki could hear how he laboured even in his sleep. If he had been an honest man, perhaps he would have admitted to feeling concern, or guilt, but he was neither honest nor really a man, so he didn't bother. Instead, he dipped his fingers into the bottle and flicked some of the tincture onto the spot that the broken piece should lie, then waited for the soft glow to appear, hoping the light would not wake him.

When it did, he realised it was a little further towards the boy's spine, and repeated the action. Their nightmares, the only true side-effects of the curse laid upon them, meant they had an unhelpful habit of waking up during the night regardless of what he was doing. Flickering lights and soft glows only increased that likelihood.

Finding the point where the spell had started to break down, he whispered as quietly as he could in a chant that was almost like singing as he focused on the strands of the spell. Given free use of his magic he wouldn't have had to bother with words or chants or any kind of vocalisation, but it was necessary.

In a limited way, the cuffs could understand basic ideas. He had learned that the rationale needed to get past them went something like this: _I am only saying some words, aren't I? It's not my fault the spell obeys. I use no power. I only speak words. Let me speak. I do no harm._ And the cuffs accepted this logic.

He was known as Loki Silvertongue, after all, and it would be foolish to assume he could persuade only sentient creatures.

The spell rewove itself under his watchful eye, tightening where it had gone loose and unravelling where it had formed knots. It took perhaps a minute, maybe less, for it to be perfect again and for Loki to cease his chanting but even so a sharp headache took up residence behind his left eye. Although it was relatively dull for now Loki knew from past experience it would only grow as he visited each of the children in turn.

He listened to Steve, breathing easier now, for a moment or two to ensure he wasn't about to wake before standing and turning away – then he heard the easy breaths labouring again, this time not from weakness or sickness. Even in the relative darkness he could see the boy curl in on himself and shiver. Loki turned back, and pulled the cover over him a little better. The boy was ill already, born ill it seemed, and he didn't need the chill of the Helicarrier to disturb his night. Briefly he swept his hand over the child's forehead delicately enough to offer comfort without waking him, and left as silently as he had entered.

Loki made his way to the next room, ready to repeat the process. Natasha was a very light sleeper, and it would be nice to sort this little difficulty out for her before the headache got too bad and made him clumsy. It would also help if he was done with all of them before Clint woke and got his nightly glass of water – their talks were the highlight of his very long nights.

Admittedly, he did wonder what the uncursed Clint would think of their interactions with not a little glee.

More seriously, there was one thing he was sure of. For all he would hurt the children out of necessity, self-serving as it was, he would heal what he had done. It was something Odin had never really thought to do.

* * *

... he is Loki, after all.


	13. Fury

AN:/ Sorry this took so long, hope you enjoy =)

.

Given the chance, Nick Fury would have taken any other option. He'd never liked Loki – he had never had to. He didn't have to respect him or sympathise with him or even acknowledge him as anything but a problem to be dealt with as swiftly and efficiently as possible. He would have made a deal with the Devil himself to avoid working with the alien god if he wasn't half-convinced they were one and the same person. So the next time he was faced with Loki he had no qualms about telling the Avengers to get over their personal feelings and fight.

* * *

Before Fury had a chance to call Loki in to discuss the news he'd received – namely, the children being in greater trouble than he thought possible – Hill caught him and gave him an update on the attitudes of the other agents towards the unusual custody scheme. He could have guessed how it went by the look on her face; she had a particular glare she used when she had to give him bad news or disagree with him. It was part of why he liked her, but it did grate.

"There are concerns about how close the Avengers and Loki are getting," Hill told him shortly. "Particularly Clint. They're thinking of the last time the two joined forces."

"Joined forces? Brainwashed by a magic stick and you call it joining forces?" Fury asked, sarcasm dripping from the words, then softened his voice – it wasn't her fault this wasn't working perfectly. "Well maybe we need to think about things differently. Loki is one of the worst things out there and we've just got him to take a personal interest in the safety and well-being of the people who go out on a regular basis to fight him. Please tell me you can see some of the benefits of that."

"Of course, but he _is _a genocidal alien with a megalomaniacal streak a mile wide," she pointed out. "Do you really think this is going to end well?"

"I think it won't end in a city that's mostly rubble," he said, mostly to himself. "Any more questions, Agent Hill? Because I've an urgent concern I need to see to."

She shook her head and stepped away, clearly not happy with the dismissal but detaching from the conversation anyway and returning to her own duties with smooth efficiency. Fury carried on down the corridor, irritated and annoyed at having been given this bad news even as he appreciated her efforts to keep him apprised of the situation. Of course people would be concerned. He was surprised the World Security Council hadn't been quietly informed already of the fondness the children had for a murdering alien who was also a diplomatic nightmare; he doubted they would see the situation in the same light as he did.

* * *

When he got to the meeting room, he sent for Loki. The alien walked in serenely, but Fury knew from the recordings that he slept very little and could see the bags under his eyes. Fury didn't particularly care – it wasn't as though he'd had a good night's sleep himself, having set several trusted data analysis experts to checking medical reports and video recordings for proof that Loki's claims were true. The sensitive nature of the information meant he had to remain awake and ready to hear their conclusions as soon as they were done processing the data; he couldn't let this become stray gossip, especially before he had a chance to present a decent solution to the WSC. His early morning had been taken up by meetings trying to ascertain how long they had to fix this, meetings that ultimately came down to every expert they could gather being decisive only in their indecision.

"So, tell me what's going on here. We've checked and double-checked, and it seems for once you're telling the truth. The Avengers are dying," he stated, getting to the point as soon as Loki had come to a halt in front of him. At this point, he couldn't care less about making small talk with a prisoner.

"They are," Loki responded infuriatingly calmly.

"And when will you be able to do something about this?" Fury asked sharply. "Believe me when I say it is in everyone's best interests for you to co-operate."

"That depends entirely on you, and what you plan to do about these," Loki said, raising his arms to show the stone cuffs. "Obviously, I am limited in what I can do when restrained."

"Do you think I am that _stupid_?" Fury said disbelievingly. "We both know that those are the only things keeping you under control."

"And what do you wish for most, Director? Control? Or for your Avengers, for those children, to live?" he asked almost sweetly.

"Are you threatening me? Because I do remember what happened last time you tried that," Fury reminded him, biting off every word even as he knew it was futile to bring it up.

"I think I won that battle, actually. Lost the war, but killed quite a few of your agents," Loki pointed out silkily, a stupid smug grin on his face that Fury itched to punch into oblivion.

"And I haven't forgotten it," was the reply he settled for instead, intense and angry. "But that isn't what we're here for now, is it? What's involved in saving them?"

"Direct manipulation of the spell. I just about perform parlour tricks, light shows with these on," he sneered, "I can look, but I cannot touch. I cannot change."

"Fine. Understood. How long until they die?"

"Perhaps a month. Likely much less," Loki shrugged, and when Fury glared he glared back and stated: "The spell is imprecise. The imprecision means it is unstable. How, exactly, am I supposed to divine the precise moment when it will finally collapse?"

"Right," Fury accepted the answer unwillingly. "Then I suppose there's nothing else to talk about."

Brusquely dismissing the alien back to his baby-sitting duties, Fury retreated to his office. Safely inside, he sighed as he felt a headache coming on. It seemed whatever he did, he was damned; free Loki and maybe get the Avengers back, or keep him locked up and watch them die.

Something would have to be done, and soon. He just hoped he would make the right choice.

Twelve hours later, he received confirmation from the WSC that the war criminal Loki would be permitted relief from his restraints on one condition – that his brother would be there as a safety net. The pressing ache in Fury's head slowly grew worse.


End file.
